Neon Prey (Lucas Davenport #29)(13)

BOB AND RAE were staying at a Best Western in Plaquemine, but Lucas suggested that they check out and go with him to New Orleans. “I’ve already got rooms reserved for the three of us. I’ll need you down there. Depending on what we find out tomorrow, we might be flying.”

“We thought we might,” Rae said. “We’re basically packed; we’ve got our gear bag.”

Lucas nodded. Their gear bag contained enough weaponry to start a revolution.

After leaving the Best Western, and a brief stop at a Walmart, they went on to downtown New Orleans and checked into a Hampton Inn. The trip down took an hour and a half, and they agreed to meet in the restaurant for breakfast at eight o’clock. “We should be at Smith’s place by nine o’clock at the latest. I don’t want to miss him,” Lucas said.

Alone in his room, Lucas opened up his new burner phone, the one he’d bought at Walmart, and called WVUE. “I need to talk to the producer on the Clayton Deese cannibal story. I just got back from there and I have a tip for you.”

They put him on hold for two minutes, then a producer came up and asked, “You’re calling about the Clayton Deese story?”

Lucas gave his voice a querulous tone. “Yes. I’ve been working up there, and I don’t agree with the way the FBI is handling the information. Your story about the cannibal aspects is correct, but what they’re not telling you is that some of the victims are children. He was kidnapping and eating children. Check with the FBI and they’ll be forced to tell you the truth about this.”

“Could we get your name . . . ?”

Lucas clicked off, yawned, went online, emailed Weather about his day, read her email about her day, turned on the TV and watched a ballgame. He was asleep by midnight and up by 7:30.

He turned on the television before he went into the bathroom, hoping to get the news, and was shaving when an alert came up, and a woman said, “After our exclusive report last night, that cannibalism was involved in the Clayton Deese serial killer investigation, a tipster called a producer at this station and alleged that some of the victims now being uncovered were children. The FBI refuses to comment . . .”

Lucas took the razor away from his chin, smiled at himself, and muttered through the shaving cream, “You’re so great, Davenport. You’re a fuckin’ PR genius, you know that?”

Lucas wrote a note to Roger Smith before he went downstairs. Bob and Rae were waiting in the restaurant. They all had pancakes and sausage, and Rae said, “Smith is going to tell you to stick your note where the sun don’t shine.”

“Maybe,” Lucas said. “Or maybe not.”

Bob said he was intimately familiar with New Orleans, so he drove, promptly got lost, and resorted to the navigation system. They went past Audubon Park, and Lucas said, “I’ve heard of that place . . . never seen it.”

“You should go someday,” Bob said. “Great place to bird-watch.”

“You bird-watch?”

“Not unless it’s buffalo wings on a platter,” Rae said.

“But I seepeople bird-watching,” Bob said. “It’s a nice place. This whole area is nice.”

“As long as you got a Porsche,” Rae said.

Smith lived in a pale green two-story house behind a wrought-iron fence on St. Charles Avenue, a few blocks from the park, with a lush yard spotted with flower gardens and manicured trees. The street was actually a boulevard, with a grassy strip between lanes and trolley tracks down the middle of the strip. There were narrow on-street parking lanes, and Bob pulled into one, behind a Porsche Panamera, a half block down from Smith’s house. “You sure you don’t want us to come with you?”

“Nah, I’m fine. I want to be as unintimidating as I can be, at least until I get inside,” Lucas said.

Entry to Smith’s yard was either through the driveway gate, which had an elaborate lock, or through an old-looking wrought-iron gate that led up a stone sidewalk to the front door. The gate was closed with a simple latch, but when Lucas pushed it open he noticed a copper stud on the side latch: an electronic switch. He’d triggered an alarm inside the house.

The front door was set up three limestone steps and into a deep recess; there were both a lighted doorbell and a bronze knocker on the door, and he leaned on the doorbell for an extra beat and then banged the knocker a few times. A moment later, a slender, dark-complected man with close-cropped curly black hair opened the door, looked at Lucas, and asked, “Jehovah’s Witness?”

He made Lucas smile, and Lucas said, “No, I’m a U.S. Marshal. I want to visit with Mr. Smith for a moment. No warrant, no recording, just a friendly conversation. I have a note for him.”

“He may not be up, but after you nearly knocked down the door he may be. Can I have the note?”

Lucas passed it to him and asked, “If you can’t knock down a door with a knocker, what can you knock it down with?”

The dark eyes flicked up at him and then back down to the note, which he read aloud: “‘Your employee ate children? Really?’”

“I thought I should ask,” Lucas said.

“Wait here,” the man said.


HE WAS BACK in five minutes. “Roger will be down in a minute. He was awake, but he wanted to brush his teeth and splash some water on his face.”